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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26047888">Marski’s Headcanons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmaladeSkies/pseuds/marmaladeSkies'>marmaladeSkies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cooking, Duscur, Food, Gen, Religion, Sewers, headcanons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:40:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26047888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmaladeSkies/pseuds/marmaladeSkies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Just headcanons and worldbuilding here! If you want a fic with plot and characters and stuff, try somewhere else.</p>
<p>Chapter 1: Duscur Cuisine<br/>Chapter 2: Fodlan’s Sewer Systems<br/>Chapter 3: The Four Saintly Orders</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Duscur Cuisine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Also posted on my <a href="https://marskisfics.tumblr.com/">Tumblr!</a> Feel free to bother me there if you’d like!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The primary staple crops of Duscur are potatoes and rye, both of which are very hardy and can grow just about everywhere. Potatoes are not freeze-tolerant by any means, but by growing underground they can withstand spring frosts (fall frosts, on the other hand, tend to end the potato growing season). They also grow turnips, barley, and beets, though to a lesser extent. Sugar maples can be found in the south, and are tapped for their sap, but the labor needed to process it leaves maple syrup as a luxury food only.</p>
<p>	Commoners in the south live primarily on a diet of potatoes and flatbread made with a rye base, along with anything foraged outside of town. Potatoes are typically cooked either as dumplings or in a stew with whatever else is available, or are mixed with flour and used to make gnocchi (which is then stuffed with foraged plants and often wild mushrooms.) Borscht, originally part of Faerghan cuisine, rose in popularity in Duscur thanks to the trade policies of King Lambert (it then sharply crashed in popularity thanks to the Tragedy of Duscur).</p>
<p>	In the north, agriculture becomes incredibly difficult due to the climate, so the main means of food production are instead through fishing, reindeer herding, and the hunting of marine mammals. Meals in the north are meat and fish heavy, and make extensive use of blood and organ meat. Blood pancakes and sausages are common. Reindeer milk is often preserved by mixing it with angelica and leaving it to ferment. Fish is also frequently salted and fermented to preserve it.</p>
<p>	In both regions, forage is common. Many of the native berries are resistant to domestication and can only be found in the wild, and are frequently collected and turned into jam. Angelica patches are prized and carefully conserved, as are common mushrooming spots. Duscur does not have any deadly mushrooms native to it, so mushrooming is generally safe. The country <i>does</i> have fly agaric in the south, however. Fortunately, fly agaric is distinctive enough to prevent anyone from accidentally adding some to their potato soup.</p>
<p>	An extensive road network means that foodstuffs from different regions are available to all, though typically most commoners will stay with their own specialties and only eat imported food on special occasions. The middle and upper classes often make a point of eating food from different regions, or at least they did before the subjugation of Duscur killed the majority of them.</p>
<p>	Some Duscur spices are horseradish, mint, chives, tarragon, angelica, salt, fernweed, and sorrel, with horseradish and angelica having particular prominence in cooking.</p>
<p>	In contrast, Faerghus considers potatoes a barely-edible famine food, doesn’t have reindeer at all and less access to marine mammals, and grows little rye. Both cultures also have different fish fermentation methods- Faerghus has better access to salt via trade with its southern neighbors and tends to more heavily salt its fish before fermentation. </p>
<p>	Dedue and Ashe’s restaurant in their ending most likely served a lot of potato and rye dishes, simply because that is what they would be most capable of growing on their own and I headcanon Dedue as being from southern Duscur.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Fodlan’s Sewer Systems</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Fire Emblem: Three Houses (and probably all Fire Emblem games, come to think of it) does not go into detail about how the sanitation system of Garreg Mach, or indeed the rest of Fodlan, functions. This is probably because having the school smell like the inside of a latrine would be the entirely wrong kind of immersion for players.</p>
<p>But let’s not kid ourselves- it does.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Copied over from <a href="https://marskisfics.tumblr.com/post/628011467748360192/fodlan-headcanons-sewage"> here.</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Let’s assume for the moment that Rhea, being from an advanced society, is aware of germ theory and that sewage contains some seriously nasty bacteria. We can therefore assume that even if the people who survived the Nabatean-Agarthan war no longer had that knowhow, she’d reintroduce it to them. Now, germ theory is hard to prove in a society without access to microscopes, but she could at least get the idea across that sewage is a disease vector and strongly encourage cleanliness while forming the Church of Seiros.</p>
<p>So the people of Fodlan are probably aware that sewage is not something to keep around your city, and that it should be disposed of <i>downstream.</i> This already makes them more savvy than 1800s London, the authorities of which refused to believe that a cesspit next to a water pump might have had something to do with the cholera epidemic that only struck those who drew water from that pump. This in turn means that cities in Fodlan probably enforce sanitations measures slightly more advanced than “just empty the chamberpots out onto the street, the rain will wash it away.”</p>
<p>So here is my proposal: Most hire people to routinely go from door to door collecting waste from chamberpots and pail closets, which is then safely disposed of far outside the town, downstream, or alternately turned into fertilizer. This is a very unpleasant job that is usually left to marginalized people- in Fhirdiad this would be the Duscur population, in Derdriu Almyrans, etc. Large cities built on or near a river may have parts of it diverted to provide a primitive underground sewer system, though the extent of this varies- commoners often don’t have access to well-maintained sewers and have no choice but to rely on the nightmen, while wealthy noblemen may even have indoor toilets. Villages are likely to just require everyone take care of their own waste.</p>
<p>Garreg Mach’s water source is a tributary of the Airmid river, and it is absolutely used as part of a primitive sewer system. It flows underneath the Monastery, through canals in Abyss, until eventually going out over the cliff Byleth fell off before the timeskip. There are pits where people can dump waste and garbage alike and have it fall into the river to be carried away. Sometimes these pits get clogged and someone has to climb down and dislodge the clog. Ideally someone small enough to fit, hard-working, and it wouldn’t hurt if he were part of a marginalized population that the racist monks wouldn’t feel too guilty about if he were to suffocate on the fumes…</p>
<p>It’s Cyril. Cyril’s the one they usually send down there.</p>
<p>Abyss is built upstream of where these pits empty out, but it’s not a pleasant place to live. Especially if you somehow piss off Yuri and are forced to relocate closer to the sewage inflow.</p>
<p>Even if the sewage is being disposed of, the dumping pits end up coated in waste and absolutely reek. If they can spare the soap and water, the monks will occasionally have someone (Cyril) clean them off, but it never lasts long. Garreg Mach is a big place with a lot of people who produce a lot of sewage.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Four Saintly Orders</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Church of Seiros is not a monolith, and in fact has many monastic orders. The most famous of these, of course, are orders for the Four Saints.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just as a note, if anyone wants to use any of my headcanons for their own stuff, please feel free to do so!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Order of Saint Cethleann:</strong>
</p><p>The Order of Saint Cethleann can be found across the entirety of Fodlan and is known primarily for its charity work. Nuns and monks of Saint Cethleann dedicate their lives to helping the needy in whatever form that make take. For most, this means running soup kitchens, free healing clinics, and schools, though some do stretch the definition of “help” to include proselytizing for their specific denomination.</p><p>A monastery for the Order of Saint Cethleann is called a “Saint Cethleann’s House,” and is usually home to at most a dozen monks or nuns, and usually far fewer. In Faerghus, these are segregated by sex; an individual House will be staffed by either nuns or monks, but not both. This is thought to encourage a lifestyle similar to that of Saint Cethleann herself, who did not marry and had no children.</p><p>While the Order of Saint Cethleann does do a lot of good through its schools and soup kitchens, its free clinics are notorious for the poor quality of the healing they perform. Professional healers cost more money than the Order can usually raise, but amateurs and students will happily work for exposure or even just practice. Mistakes happen, and magic being what it is, they tend to happen in a dramatic manner. A barber-surgeon setting someone’s arm wrong makes for a less interesting tale than a healer fusing someone’s arm bones together. Most people only go to a Saint Cethleann’s House for healing when they have no other option.</p><p>The Order of Saint Cethleann is decentralized. Each House more or less runs itself, though larger ones will often serve as a hub for donations and parcel out excess to smaller ones nearby.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Order of Saint Cichol:</strong>
</p><p>The Order of Saint Cichol, while based along the Rhodos Coast, can be found throughout Western Faerghus. Their primary goal is to spread the teachings of the Western Church, which they claim are the original teachings. They further claim that the Central Church has diverged from the mandate of Seiros to such an extreme that the Central Church is a heretic sect. That makes this Order unpopular with the Central Church and especially the Archbishop.</p><p>While most famous for taking the side of the Western Church during the latter’s rebellion, the Order of Saint Cichol is also known for, of all things, road maintenance. Thought to have originally be a side-effect of their need to safely pilgrimage to a site sacred to Saint Cichol, this has over the centuries expanded into a general tendency for members to keep the roads clear and in good order wherever they happen to go. That this makes the locals more likely to listen when they start talking about the deficits of the Central Church seems to legitimately be a coincidence.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Order of Saint Indech:</strong>
</p><p>The Order of Saint Indech is an ascetic order concerned with deepening their relationship with the Goddess through a life of simplicity and self-study. Members are expected to eat simply, dress simply, and want for no more than what is absolutely necessary for survival.</p><p>This order has exactly one monastery, Droata Monastery, in the middle of the Leicester Alliance, which houses the vast majority of the members of the order. The rest can be found wandering alone or in pairs through Fodlan, seeking a deeper understanding of Seiros through travel. These can often be seen in major cities spreading their teachings to whoever may listen and taking shelter either on the streets or in the local Saint Cethleann’s House.</p><p>The Order of Saint Indech is infamous for allowing anyone to join, no matter their crimes, as long as they willing to give up their past for the sake of the Order, and it has on numerous occasions been accused of harboring fugitives. In one case, a local battalion of the Knights of Seiros besieged Droata Monastery for two weeks when the Order refused to turn over a notorious bandit leader who had taken refuge there several years prior. The siege was only broken when the Order of Saint Macuil involved themselves in the conflict, much to the horror of everyone else.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Order of Saint Macuil:</strong>
</p><p>The Order of Saint Macuil was initially founded as a warrior order as a complement to the Knights of Seiros. Its dedicates would train themselves in tactics, magic, and the art of war, and would serve the Church by hunting down its enemies. As the centuries passed, their dedication to the Church of Seiros waned and their dedication to the art of war greatly increased.</p><p>The Order of Saint Macuil has a bad reputation of being violent thugs who live for fighting, and unfortunately this reputation is quite a deserved one. They are known for throwing themselves into pre-existing conflicts with great zeal and a distinct lack of appreciation for the politics involved in the conflict in question, before firmly presenting a “request” for “donations” to the winners. Any attempt to reform the Order lasts at best a few years before they slide back into their old habits, and any attempt to simply exterminate it and replace it with a new one fails miserably- centuries of evading or outfighting everyone around them has made them quite tenacious.</p><p>This Order is extremely decentralized, taking the form of many discrete bands of warrior monks and nuns who periodically run across each other, fight, and trade information and members. This makes it easy for bandits and mercenaries to simply call themselves part of the Order as a means of making themselves seem stronger, but this isn’t without risk; despite their reputation of being mere thugs, the Order of Saint Macuil <em>is</em> in fact very dedicated to their distinct version of the teachings of Saint Macuil and <em>will</em> ferret out imposters with extreme prejudice. Woe be the bandit band who claims to be part of the Order to someone <em>in</em> the Order.</p>
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